1) Anyone can initiate combat by typing "kill <mobname>. But that is almost always the least effective way to do so.

2) For warrior types (Warrior, Paladin, Ranger, and Barbarian) it's best to start with "bash <mobname>" Bash is your primary skill. Study it up as high as you can and use it every chance you get. You can bash mutiple times during combat (once every two rounds). Once you are engaged in combat, you need only type "bash" to keep bashing your opponent. The benefits of bash are a) Mobs that normally cast can't cast when bashed and 2) Mobs take an extra 50% damage while they are down on the floor from being bashed.

3) For thieves, you want to start combat with BACKSTAB!. Backstab is the single most powerful attack in the game. Normal damage is multplied up to 16x with backstab, depending on your level, if your single or multi-class, and have learned appropriate lores. So make sure you study up backstab as high as you can as well as studying up your lores.

The only downside to using backstab is you can only use it once and only to initiate combat. Once you are engaged in combat you won't be able to backstab again. But there is a clever, totally thief-like, workaround to this. FLEE!. Yes,,, if you flee, you break out of combat and run off to an adjacent room. At that point you can either wait for your opponent to chase you and enter your room, when you can then backstab him again, or you can go back into the room and backstab your opponent there.

The one drawback to fleeing is that you lose some experience when you flee. But this is negated if you've also learned the "retreat" skill. If you have, then when you flee, you will usually make an orderly retreat instead of fleeing head over heels, and thereby not lose any experience.

4) If you are a spell caster and don't have warrior or thief skills, you have a couple of options. You can try to initiate combat by casting an offensive spell, like magic missile or cause light, and go from there, or you can summon pets and have them fight for you. There are various spells that allow mages, sorcerers, druids, and clerics to summon pets. Learn them and use them. Then you can "order" you pets to do things like guard you or "kill <mobname>". At higher levels you can even get pets that can bash mobs for you. Check out "help allies" for more info.

5) If you are a monk, then you want to start combat with "focus ki". It is essentially the monkish version of "bash" and has all the same benefits. So study it up and use it.

Also, monks should not use a weapon when fighting. Your hands are lethal weapons. They are treated as +5 to hit weapons and they do up to 32 hitpoints of damage per attack and monks get up to 5 attacks per round. So that's as much as 150 hps per round of damage. Check out "help monk" for more info.

6) Honestly I don't know all that much about playing a psionic. I do know they have powerful offensive attacks like ultrablast. At higher levels they get telekenesis which is much like "bash" for warriors. So you should probably start with your most powerful mind attack and go for there but be sure to ask other experienced players who are more familiar with psionists than I am.

7) The best overall strategy is to group up and combine your powers to defeat mobs. (See the post on Grouping in this forum for more info.) When grouped, one group member, usually a warrior type with lots of hitpoints, is chosen to be the "tank". He will initiate combat and will take the brunt of the damage. Once he has initiated combat, thieves should use their backstab skills and casters and psionists should cast spells and use their mind skills. Other fighters in the group can assist the tank by either simply attacking/bashing on their own or by typing "assist <tankname>" in which case you will auto-target the same mob the tank is fighting.

In any case, a group will always be far more powerful than a single combatant.

8) If you are unsure how tough a mob is, you can use the consider command to get a rough estimate of its toughness by typing "con <mobname>". For example, "con squirrel" will give you some info on your chances to kill that squirrel. (Hey! It's a kill or be killed world. What can I say?)